


Dawn Watch

by pentapus



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-18
Updated: 2006-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:57:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentapus/pseuds/pentapus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George receives two late night visitors at Pirate's swoop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dawn Watch

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Shusu and Seigeofangels for the beta.
> 
> Written for MsSolo

 

 

 **Disclaimer:** The Tortall universe belongs to Tamora Pierce. This story is just for fun.  
**Notes:** Set between _Emperor Mage_ and _Realms of the Gods_. There is a very sarcastic intro to the canon behind this story in the end notes.

**

Not all of the habits of a thief had disappeared with George's shift in occupations. He was in the middle of comparing a coded message from an informant in Corus to one from Legann when Josue knocked at the study door.

"Waiting for something?" George said absently, pausing to mark immortal attacks on the map of Tortall in front of him. It was at times like these, he reflected ruefully, that he ached for the Rogue's extensive network of informants, so easily overlooked by those in power and so delightfully effective--now twenty years out of his reach.

He leaned back in his chair, feeling the warmth of the fire in the hearth at his back, and waved an encouraging hand at Josue. One of the castle's hounds snuffled in its sleep on the hearth rug.

"Salmalin's coming up the road with that student of his," said the captain of the guard, keeping any other thoughts he had to himself. But he'd come to George's study himself to announce her presence and that said something about the captain's awareness of the terrifying power she wielded. "They look harried," Josue added.

George looked up sharply. "Trouble?"

"None that I can see, but I'd bet a flask of the winter wine there's been some--and recent."

"He's wagerin' the good stuff," George told the dog laid out by the fire. "Better go see." It was a bad habit he'd picked up since meeting Veralidaine Sarrasri. As usual, the dog ignored him.

The guard captain was dressed in heavy woolens, sword belted at his waist. Putting away his papers in a locked case, George reached for his own thick overcoat and followed Josue through the chilly early-morning dark to the castle's front gate.

Numair's large, gentle gelding had crossed the drawbridge when they arrived, identifiable by its white markings in the moonlight. The cloaked figure on the horse's back was too small to be Numair Salmalin, who stood nearly six and a half feet in height, but as they approached the portcullis--always down since midwinter--the tall figure leading the pony pulled back his hood, and George recognized the sorcerer's sculpted features.

"Baron," Numair greeted, his surprise dulled by fatigue.

"I'm afraid we're not lettin' an unsavory types in these days," George said, propping his hands on the portcullis grate and searching his visitors for signs of hurt.

For a moment, Numair looked confused. "We've ridden for--we were hoping for lodging--"

That was worrying. George kept his expression even. "Don't be simple," he said mildly, stepping back as the wood beneath his hand began to move. Old, heavy ropes creaked in protest. "You must be exhausted if it's taken your wits like this."

Numair's head tilted back to follow the gate as it disappeared into the roof of archway. "A little. I'm sorry."

"No need for--" George started, but at that moment, the girl on the horse shook her head and seemed to wake. She pushed at the hood of her cloak with dirty hands, fastened securely by the scarf wrapped around her neck--not, George suspected, by Daine herself.

"Numair, are we--" She shifted towards Numair curiously and nearly fell but for a drunken grab at the saddle horn. Numair grabbed her before George had the chance, pulling her gently from the horse and gathering her up, a tightly wrapped bundle dwarfed in the sorcerer's arms.

"Oh, gods," Daine murmured, hand to her head, "not a good idea."

"We're here," Numair promised, "and in time for sleep and food and hopefully some semblance of humanity."

"I like humanity," Daine said sleepily, turning her face into Numair's coat.

Guardsmen in the livery of Pirate's Swoop came forward to take the horse, and George led them through the long, stone entry arch, past another portcullis and the murder holes cut into the wall. Nobody tried to suggest that someone better rested carry the girl.

"Anything of particular interest?" George asked quietly.

"Immortals," Numair managed, cradling Daine to his chest. "Large--ones." He huffed a laugh. "Mithros, I'll be no good to anyone until I've slept. But no, just the usual."

"The usual," George repeated dryly. "What times, what times."

Numair smiled tiredly and followed the Baron of Pirate's Swoop into his keep. Daine, for her part, had already fallen asleep.

**

That night George slept lightly but well and woke before dawn--another leftover of another life. He let Josue tell him the night had been uneventful and popped in to the nursery to see his children safely asleep, buried under sheets and coverlets against the cold. Forgoing his study, he took his spyglass from its case and went up to watch the sea at sunrise.

Even in early spring, it was too cold at this hour to hang about comfortably outdoors, so George kept a room in the largest tower as a winter observatory. It was high enough that it was one of the few rooms in the castle with wide windows, a row of them along the curved seaside wall.

He was not entirely surprised to find Numair Salmalin already there.

The mage was wrapped in one of the woolen blankets left folded about the room, sitting on the worn velvet of the window seat and staring out to sea. Wind from an open window ruffled his long, black hair, let loose around his shoulders. A tray of cheese, bread, and wine sat half-finished by his foot. George watched a mouse dart away triumphantly with a piece of yellow cheese.

"Careful--I don't have the budget to feed all of that girl's friends."

Numair started. "What?"

George sat down, nudging the tray towards himself with a boot. He nodded at the mouse.

"Oh, yes," Numair said. No longer alone, he sat up straighter, fussing unsubtly with his mussed hair. "Did I tell you how we booked free passage up the Drell by promising the captain we could get rid of the ship rats?"

"Sounds like the start to a memorable tale," George said, slicing off a hunk of cheese with a knife from his belt.

Numair smiled wryly. "I thought we were leaving them on the docks. She brought them home with us instead. There is now an entire colony of ship rats living in my tower, who leave my books and equipment alone on the understanding that I make no _undue_ attempts to get rid of them."

George laughed heartily. Numair turned back into the wind, going quiet. With one hand he worried at a gold locket on a chain around his wrist. He looked better after sleep but still worn thin. George hoped Veralidaine was still sleeping.

The sky was beginning to lighten with dawn, and George wordlessly handed over the spyglass. Numair took it gratefully, and they passed some time in companionable silence watching the waves while George ate the rest of Numair's breakfast.

"I'm a lecherous old man," Numair said suddenly with all the weight of a confession.

George was examining a pile of papers left on the window seat and didn't immediately look up. They were covered in awkward charcoal drawings--the twins had been up here drawing whales again. "I've seen your women," he said. "Those are very precocious children you're takin' advantage of."

Numair looked over with an expression hollowed out by guilt.

"Ah," George said, understanding, "More of that then. I'll be getting you a stronger drink."

"Gods," Numair breathed, " _please_."

George called down the stairwell for a serving man who soon returned with the pick of the cellar. In George's early days as landed nobility, Jonathan had expressed surprise that George kept the castle so well staffed given his vocal disdain for most of the Tortallan nobility, but the truth was that George liked living comfortably as much as he liked hard work. It had been true as a commoner, and it was true as a noble. Alanna, more familiar with George's rich taste in gift giving, had been less surprised.

"What is this?"

"This," George said, holding the dark bottle up to the early light, "is magic beer."

" _Magic_ beer," Numair repeated.

"Made by _Gifted_ brewers. Possessin' more than ordinary arts of distillation and especial potency."

Numair eyed his pewter goblet. "I'm beginning to think I'll regret this."

"And I'm already regrettin' that your young, inexperienced, and obedient charge--dependent on you for guidance and support--is such a doe-eyed paragon of womanhood."

"George, you poisonous, son of a--" Numair started. He tipped back the goblet and drank a long draught, drowning out the rest. Gasping, he leaned his forehead against the cold window panes. "I am wretched, aren't I?"

"When I was her age," George said, "I'd just slit a man's throat to steal his kingdom."

Numair eyed him suspiciously. "I can't tell if you're telling me not to worry about our scandalous difference in years or if I just shouldn't be asking _you_."

George raised his cup in an enigmatic toast. Numair sighed, looking out to sea.

"She's hardly inexperienced these days," he mused. "As for obedient... I did tell you about the rats? And a paragon of womanhood! When it comes to that, she's really rather plain. Gods, how admirable of me, to spend my days wanting to tumble her into bed and then to compare her unfavorably to every other woman of my intimate acquaintance."

"I've always admired your dedication to vanity," George admitted.

Numair glared at him--and then ruined it by touching his hair self-consciously. George roared with laughter. "Obviously I'm some kind of crazy to think you're the man to talk to about my secret guilts and dark desires."

"I'm an extremely pleasant man to talk to. But you're wantin' a face to talk _at_ , not to."

"You're right, I suppose. Sometimes it's so overwhelming, I feel about to choke on it, and I have to say something to get it out of my throat."

"You're not keepin' something from me, are you? This immortal attack didn't go badly? More badly than usual, anyway?"

"Why, am I waxing too poetic? No, no. It was just--big." George laughed, and Numair threw up the hand not holding his drinking cup. "Hold your complaints about my eloquence. If I say it was big, it's because it was the size of an ogre--if ogres flew and fell to pieces when I caught them."

"Not the dead sort of `to pieces', I'm wagering."

"No. Daine would compare it to a Yamani lizard--a gecko, casting off uncritical body parts to escape. Though it's a little stranger than a gecko to strike off the head and watch the rest get up and run away. It took--a long time to kill. Daine got frustrated; she shifted shape more than should have been necessary and wore herself out."

George sipped his beer. "How many died?"

"None. It didn't kill. It ate--fingers. The smaller the better."

George grimaced. "There's a pleasant creature."

"Don't doubt it. I'd never heard of anything like it. Lord Joridun coined the phrase `fingersmith'."

"A fingersmith is a thief," George said. "Hm, I'm going to have to pick his pocket again the next time I visit."

Numair looked at him incredulously. "You pick your lords' pockets? No, no, don't bother, I believe it."

"Only when I'm feeling nostalgic," protested the baron.

Numair closed the spyglass. "Well, it's bright enough to be up now, I think. Besides, someone's eaten my breakfast, and I need to send word to the King."

"Best do that. We wouldn't want him to think you're lost in the woods misusing Daine's love and respect."

Numair returned the spyglass by way of hitting him lightly with it. "Mithros, Minos, and Shakith! I don't know why I said anything. Better to have spoken to a tree."

"If it helps," George said, following the mage down the spiraling stairs, "you were drunk the first time, and you _were_ talking to a tree. I just happened to overhear."

**

Daine joined them around noon, bright-eyed with all of a teenager's powers of instant recovery. Numair watched indulgently as Thom, George's eldest, insisted that Daine use only his favorite jam on her bread, and Daine pretended to consider his arguments very seriously. The twins were too enchanted by the clump of animals gathered at her feet to pay much attention to the meal--the castle dogs and cats and even an old, one-eyed osprey all agreeing to a temporary truce to hold court with Daine.

After eating, George sent the children to their tutor and Daine and Numair retired with him to his study where he spread out the information he'd been gathering. The immortal attacks were as unpredictable as always, but the patterns of human acts took on more worrying shapes.

"This isn't the season for Scanran raids. Is it so surprising they've dropped off?" Numair asked. He'd cleaned up in between dawn and lunch, and now looked about as striking as so constant a traveler could, dressed in a dark blue tunic over a white shirt and black breeches, his hair pulled tightly back.

"My man there is certain there's something else going on. Not just something between the raiding tribes, but an outside influence."

"In Scanra?" Daine said, surprised. She was sitting by the fire, petting the head of the big hound lying across the rug, still dressed in comfortable, drab traveling clothes. "Beggin' your pardon, Baron, but you're not the king. Why are you gathering information from Scanra or any other place outside the kingdom?"

"I was a king before I was a baron," George said simply. "I still get a craving to know the lay of things."

Daine gave him a puzzled look. Her eyes were wide and dark and long-lashed; and George cast a weighted glance at Numair Salmalin who met his look with complete comprehension and a hundred veiled threats should George suddenly lose his discretion.

George grinned wolfishly. "Later, kitten, I'll tell you all of it."

"I'm a little worried about what you consider to be _all_ of it," Numair said dryly.

"My own mother used to say the same thing." George tapped his map. "Now, look over here, and tell me what you think of these Carthakis."

The girl and the sorcerer left the fire to pore with him over his papers. They were still there hours later when the wyverns attacked; followed by the Copper Islanders and their Scanran mages.

When a ruby stone in Numair's pocket flared with a message from the King to say the capital was besieged, George only said, "I suppose now I'll have to learn how a nobleman fights."

Standing next to him on the ramparts holding a drawn bow, Daine said wisely, "It's probably scarier if you don't."

George grinned and breathed deeply the wind from the sea.

 

 

**

#####  1\. George Cooper was Tortall's King of Thieves, a.k.a the Rogue, before King Jonathan pardoned him and gave him the Barony of Pirate's Swoop--because beheading your best friend/ex-girlfriend's husband for grand theft _everything_ would totally suck.  
  
2\. Magic in this universe is called the "Gift". Unless you have Wild Magic, then who knows what's going on. Well, besides Numair. Or your crazy dad, the _God of the Hunt_. Wow, Mom, thanks for leaving _that_ bit out of "Why Daddy isn't around, part 734,923."  
  
3\. Despite any vulnerable huddling in the arms of slenderly giant sorcerers, do not piss half-divine children off--they will tear down your enormous palace brick by brick in a single-minded rage using a small strike force of zombie mammoths. _You think I'm joking_.  
  
4\. The funniest part of this story is that Pirate's Swoop faces west. 

 


End file.
